Box Set Of Three Grave Digger Albums That Are Concept Albums About Times In The
Middle Ages.

"Tunes Of War" Is About Scotland's History Of War And Pursuit Of Freedom.

"Knights Of The Cross" Is About The Crusades

"Excalibur" Is About The Mythological Sword Excalibur.

Tunes Of War

What cannot be emphasized enough is perhaps the impact this album had on me the moment i heard those 2 minutes of bagpipes coupled with Uwe's guitar!

Germany's very own speed metal power-house, Grave Digger come roaring in with the first part in their legendary Middle Ages Trilogy with the epic 'Tunes Of War'! The proper heirs to the majesty of Accept, the band's crunchy guitar set aside the musical landmark that is Chris Boltendahl's vocal performance has placed Grave Digger constantly one step ahead in the metal industry.

Being obviously a concept album, 'Tunes Of War' does not emphasize on a certain character or certain string of relatively close events, but instead features almost 700 years of Scottish history. The tracks tell the story of the battles of Carham, Largs, Flodden Field and Culloden in chronological order, and while this presents little relevance musically, the characters portrayed do. The legendary William Wallace, is preceded in song by a short harmonic guitar intro, after which his constant fear of not living up to his followers' expectations is brought in through the use of a strong choral performance.

As its title suggests 'The Ballad Of Mary (Queen Of Scots)', is a balladic retrospective on Scotland's most beloved female figure, Queen Mary I. The vocals are executed quite out-of-style for Grave Digger outside the rough voice spectrum we are all used to, in an almost entirely acoustic piece. The most honorable mention here, and a taste of what was to come, is keyboardist HP Katzenburg's interference, creating a symphonic piece worthy of no other.

The Jacobite Rebellion quickly comes into play with perhaps the most well-known track off of this album 'Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching)'. After a short acoustic intro, and an inspiring chant, the song comes into full gear and features what is in my opinion, Grave Digger's most neck-break-speed guitar-work so far! While bagpipes in rock'n'roll are not something previously unheard of, i mean who can forget AC/DC's 'It's A Long Way To The Top', it immediately becomes obvious this album would not be complete without the use of the traditional Scottish instrument.

The battle of Culloden is 'the end of Scotland' and as such, 'Culloden Muir' is sung from the perspective of a doomed warrior, with desperation absolutely obvious in the vocals at one point.

Definitely a piece to which i, for one, cannot find a flaw,'Tunes Of War' is Grave Digger's strongest work yet, which proves that a band that reunites after a relatively long hiatus is not doomed to obscure releases that only die-hards would buy and that reaching out to new generations is quite possible.

Knights Of The Cross

Grave Digger's second installment in their sadly-unknown Middle Ages trilogy is even better than their first one. Knights of the Cross is the best out of all three of the albums. Still more power metal, and more thrash. Chris Boltendahl's clean singing comes out more too, and you don't hear his shriek his much. His wonderful gruff singing is still all over the place, though. This album is chockful of just as many great riffs and solos, but the vocal melodies are MUCH more memorable than the ones on Tunes of War. All three albums of the trilogy get a 95%+, this is no exception at all.

This CD features nothing but improvements from Tunes of War. It begins with an intro and two thrashers, and ends with the two best songs on the album: The Curse of Jacques, The Battle of Bannockburn. These songs, and the rest of the songs on the album have such catchy choruses. You can't listen to the music without feeling like a Crusader yourself. Grave Digger's lyrics are... well, yes, they're cheesy, but come on! The band's from Germany! Any band that makes an album about history rules, though. Especially if it's about the Crusades.

Excalibur

Most power metal fans don't know about Grave Digger... they're actually more popular with the thrash crowd. I haven't figured it out, either, just because they're a bit heavier doesn't make them any less of a power metal band! But anyway, you're all waiting for a review.

Compared to the other two parts of the Trilogy (Tunes of War, Knights of the Cross) this album is the most different. It's not about history as much as the other two were. It's about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Chris Boltendahl goes in the direction that Knights of the Cross went in, and there are very few shrieks and a lot more clean vocals. This time, his clean vocals are almost as common as his gruff singing! That's a good thing, and it's a shame that later on he couldn't continue using them as much. The tempo of this album is faster and heavier than Tunes of War and Knights of the Cross, though, even though there's more singing. It's more of a cross between Tunes of War and Knights of the Cross than anything, though... you just have to listen to understand.

Sound good? Believe me, it is... I think that Excalibur was aimed more towards the power metal crowd, because Chris got it through his head that if he was already making music that fans of Rhapsody and other fantasy power metal bands would enjoy, he should try to make something more appealing to them. He surely succeeded.

My favorite songs on this are Excalibur, The Round Table (Forever) and definitely Morgane Le Fay. Morgane Le Fay ranks up there with Rebellion when it comes to fan popularity. This song is always played live. If I had to make any complaint at all about this CD, the only thing I could come up with is that their ballad, Emerald Eyes, doesn't feature Chris singing enough. It's written well, and I like the song very much, I just think it could have been done a bit better. Still, this album gets a good score from me.